


Frozen

by Windy (KazeChama)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KazeChama/pseuds/Windy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My thoughts on on depression, despair, why not t give up.<br/>My story, how I managed to go on and get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> I share my story hoping to make a difference in somebody`s life. Please bear in mind that this contains some nicely wrapped suicidal thoughts but has a hopeful ending.
> 
> Any kind of feedback is highly appreciated.

**Frozen**

 

Life can be tough. Sometimes.

Very tough, sometimes. I always wondered where the shame lies in admitting it is hard, in admitting that you need help, or in finding a solution on your own.  
I always was proud that I could handle being alone so well. I would walk alone from school and think about all those people, who could not even go to the toilet alone. Who did not walk alone home from school? I was so much stronger, because I could handle it.  
Much later, I understood that people could handle being alone often, they just chose not to. Having company means that you can draw strength from one another. You can help each other. I am sure the girls going to the toilet together did not think about it in this way. Everybody always went together, so nobody questioned it. I just stayed alone, because nobody went with me.

So does that mean that they are weak because they need the company of others, or that I am weak because I don`t have loo-mates?

At some point in school, we learned about The Sorrows of Young Werther – a classical book by Goethe. We learned about his speech that ending his own life requires courage. The other guy in the book disagreed with Werther, saying to live even with heavy burdens is the real form of courage. The "easy way out" is pure cowardice. This book set off an avalanche of suicides among young people.  
I thought about it a lot since reading it. Which is more heroic? Knowing one’s own limitations and choosing to end it, or to bear the suffering, hoping it will end?

Because nothing remains broken forever, things have to get better at some point, right? I can handle pain well, when I can see the end of it. I get grumpy and cranky when it seems endless.  
It rarely is endless, but sometimes it continues for so long that I lose hope. Like period cramps, or school pressure, or life for that matter.  
While you continue to run towards your goal, you come to expect people to admire or at least acknowledge you for it, and nothing happens. When you finally do reach the goal, you think that now the praise will come. Now. N...now?  
Nah, what you just did is what was expected of you to accomplish naturally. The fact that you had to work your butt off does not matter. Praise is unnecessary.  
So, you try and get better and better; jumping over your own shadow in the run to impress, but your efforts stay unnoticed. Ups.  
So, what now? Where is the point you break? Stop trying?  
Look at our society – Those, who try and fail ridiculously, are admired and noticed. Those who rebel get the attention you seek to get with good behavior. So, when do you stop trying to be good and start being bad?  
Can you even do that? Are you not scared of being hurt, rejected, or even chased away?  
When I say you, of course I mean myself, but it’s so much easier to pretend that those problems are not mine. Those things matter to all of us. The approach may be different, as well as the amount of effort and struggle, but in the end it’s the same for all of us.  
What will inspire and motivate you to go on? What will make you give up? What will break you until you are beyond repair?

I wonder, if I have reached that point beyond repair and if I’m just running now from the last of my breath until I fail – or if there is still hope for me to get fixed. That mysterious point which is called the END. The end of hope, but also the end of despair, and the end of pain.  
Pain, for sure, is not endless. But, we would prefer for our end to be painless. Sometimes people opt out of pain, especially when they have to endure it for too long.  
Have you heard this story about a psychologist holding a motivational speech of some sort? Where she holds a cup with a bit of water and explains people that even though the cup is not heavy, were she to hold it for a few hours, or a day or two, it would become unbearably heavy because she would have been holding it for so long.  
People who are being crushed by their "small" problems for too long, need a break to stop or at least numb the pain. Why did I write small in quotation marks? The actual size of the issue is determined by point of view. Often, what by-standers label as being “small” is actually perceived as being huge by the sufferer; who chooses a method of numbing he or she deems appropriate. The methods wary, and not all of them are right or healthy.  
But, I think everyone can be helped even if not everyone can help themselves. I don`t regard a permanent END to everything, as help. That is the desperate act of someone who tried everything they could think of and did not succeed. I had found that a bit hard to understand. Past tense used here, because now I do understand.  
I reached the point where I needed help and cried out for it; literally cried. People did not believe that I felt depressed. Depression is obviously something only weak individuals experience. I never seemed weak. When something in my behaviour changed, people started withdrawing from me. They felt annoyed by my choosing to cry before I lose an argument. It never occurred to them that they could have pushed me so hard that I just couldn’t handle the pressure of a simple unimportant discussion. No matter the circumstances, I simply had to cry to ease that pressure. I was not weak, I was not showing any signs of weakness, I was just getting weird. If they ever attributed this change in behaviour to problems, no one in my surroundings felt compelled or knew how to help me.  
I was hitting the bottom, and felt like crying nearly all my waking time. Why did nobody notice it? Then I looked in the mirror. I looked at my face when I felt the tears burn behind my eyes. I looked at myself right after crying. I tried lifting the corners of my mouth. What stared back at me was my smiling face, like everything was all right, as if I was happy. No teary eyes, no puffy eyes. The smile did not reach to my eyes, but who looked that carefully? The smile in the mirror vanished. No sadness appeared on my face.  
I pulled the corners of my mouth down. Does this look like sadness? Not really, it`s more like a grimace. My face can display all the positive emotions well – especially since I exaggerate them knowingly. But, when I am scared, or sad, or disturbed, I forget to do that. My face stays a blank mask unless I fill it with empty smiles, because that is appropriate.  
People smile when greeting each other and they smile at jokes or to show that they like a suggestion. All are things that happen during a normal day. So, people see me smile. That it’s hollow or does not appear that often, escapes them. That I can’t answer the simple conversation starter "How are you?" with the usual "Fine!" because it became too much of a lie, goes unnoticed.  
I still appear smiling, strong, but a bit weirder than before. People don’t react to my sadness and despair, because they don’t see it. I can’t bring myself to show my distress, I can’t display these emotions anywhere except off stage.  
On stage is a different matter. I know I’m acting, I know it’s appropriate for this character. It is not me who feels like this, I am not bothering others. I am entertaining them.  
So, why does nobody help me? It is because my sadness is hidden too deep for most people to notice.

Before I decided to openly tell the people I think could make a difference for me, it was winter. It was cold. When you are standing in the cold for too long, you get numb; you lose the feeling in your hands, feet, cheeks, nose, arms and legs. But, numbness was what I was looking for, right? Looking for a break from the pain, an END to the pain. The numbness spreads in from the outside. It is everywhere. It is so easy to get lost in the snow, lie down and let the numbness overtake you. So simple. All around you. All the time.  
That was when I reached the bottom, when I noticed my not-so-sad sad face; when I decided to speak to those who could, in their limited way, change something and show my smiling face to those not capable of helping me.  
I never considered the later group lazy or bad friends. I considered them immature. They could not see behind the facade in the first place. They took everything at face value, like children. We all mature differently. It is never entirely our fault, for who we are or how slow we are. I never stopped considering them friends; I just stopped expecting emotional comfort from them.  
Since the only person who noticed the cracks in my mask is twice my age, and everyone else is just a bit older than me, it became easier to forgive them and think of myself as too mature for my age. I think it changes you, when you have held your "small" cup for too long. It makes you experience more of life in a shorter period of time. You grow faster with this insight.

If you survive that is. My “cold” disappeared when spring came. But, my burden got easier as well. I changed, started to accept people with all their flaws with open arms and compassion. The thoughts about numbing myself have never vanished completely, but they did not come to me as often. I simply stopped dealing with my problems and my loneliness, and when I had strength left, I tried to sort this mess all out even if it was just a few minutes at the end of the day.  
I started looking for inspiration, because I could not be the only one. What surprised me with depth were some children’s stories. It was an odd sentence here, or a hidden glance there, sometimes even a whole dialog.  
Winter got a new meaning with “Rise of the Guardians” for me. The hero, Jack Frost, is invisible to the world, all alone and not believed to exist. It is a character I can relate to. Playing with people, making them laugh all the time, but going by unnoticed. Speaking to them, but my voice going unheard no matter how hard I scream. And Jack being tempted by Pitch Black, because the main villain understood him all too well.  
I was so tempted by darkness to distrust my fundamental beliefs, to change my life philosophy, and to take the easy way out. But, that would not be right. I consider myself a good guy, for some reason, and giving in to darkness was not my style. Even though Jack’s frost and Pitch’s darkness would work together so well, it was a temptation that opposed Jack’s inner core beliefs, and he decided to stay true to himself.  
Me, being the good guy I believe to be, I wanted the same. If so many fictional characters could get past their burdens, then I could do it too. Does it seem silly to draw strength from character’s suffering, when it similar to your own? Does it seem weird, because those people never existed in the first place?  
It is not. If I can identify with their suffering, it is not fictional any more. It rings true for me therefore it is true. Most characters that I admire, I value because of the suffering they’ve been through and at the end of it all, they still could smile sincerely.  
I wanted that too. I could do it too. Systematically I limited what made me suffer, and what anguished me. I told people in no uncertain way when something they said or did hurt me, and asked them to stop. My serious expression accompanied this plea, and the message came through. If it was forgotten after a day, I repeated it, over and over and over again. I tried my hardest not to get mad at people for not remembering my requests. I am not the centre of their world, so it’s fine. I am the centre of my world and I respect people for their own needs and busy schedules.  
When dark images crossed my mind, I made lists of nice, happy things that happened to me, like kindness that I encountered. I tried not to be bothered by the fact that more acts of kindness on my list were from people I barely knew, or just recently became friends with, and chose not to blame my immature friends. If I wanted, I could look really hard and find things that made me feel good about those people as well. Nothing is purely black or white so I always kept looking for the light coloured spots.  
I rediscovered my optimistic side, and while focusing on the good things did not make me forget the bad ones; it gave me another perspective. Imagine the world from more than one perspective! All seems so bright and big and full of colours that appear according to your point of view. This gave me back the wings from my youth.  
I am no angel, but I like to use my wings to take those needing help under them. My desire to help people dictated a lot of my youth. Why did I want to help people, if they only left me alone?

It’s because they were alone. When no one looked.  
They were sad too. But no one noticed it on their faces.  
They wanted the suffering to stop too. They just did not know how.  
They were me. Just from another perspective.

So, here I am sharing my story in the hope it will help someone. Not only fictional characters are alone and hurt, but real people are too, and each one of us can overcome it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this far.
> 
> I share this on 1.1.2014, which is my birthday. Since people more often then not forget about New Year as a birthday, and don`t feel the need to make it a special day about me, I wanted to turn this around and make it a special day for others.
> 
> Thanks a lot for proofreading this, my yomi-hubby.


End file.
